Incoming ESRL Changes

[Sifer2]

Originally Posted by Falcon_br

Well, it is official, Higby plays for the NC.

Yeah he has never tried to hide that fact actually. Thankfully he isn't the only guy that handles weapon balance. But his twatter stuff is often very biased sounding.

In any case I didn't hear him say they were changing the Striker to a guided launcher instead of lock on so i'm still unsatisfied. When is the second stronger batch of ESRL's coming so TR can have that option? lol

[Hamma]

Only change that has come thus far is the Lancer buff and a couple phoenix changes.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by Kail

I believe the contrary: If all empires have the same weapons and only their particle effects differ, why would does it matter what faction I play as? Just find the one that has the most population or the most organized outfits - (or the opposite if you like being and underdog). At that point you just have Team Red, Team Yellow, and Team Purple.

I didn't choose my faction for the Magrider or Scythe's hover ability. I chose VS purely because of the lore, color scheme, and outfits from PS1 I played with. That's actually how I'd prefer people to choose their factions rather than by default playstyles. It might seem odd to just have that to choose, but I think it's a far better than choosing on default playstyles or faction playstyles that are currently overpowered.

Also with the changes the developers made to make the Phoenix more powerful now with one-hit kills on aircraft I think it should be clear they have little understanding of balance. I mean their decisions for balance are extremely random and usually go in excess of what is required. The Striker is probably the most obvious case after the Phoenix which they released fully knowing it could one-hit infantry. We went through a launcher that could lock onto ground and air was too powerful so they released a buffed version of one faction. These kind of decisions probably won't stop and the balance cycle is already mirroring what happened in PS1 when balance patches were attempted over and over. I mean as an example the prowler never had the ability to hit aircraft as easily as it does now. In balancing one thing they create bigger problems especially when it's faction specific.

I'm probably not going to convince you of anything, but choosing a faction based on lore and graphics is preferable to what is currently happening where players choose based on the flavor of the month weapon or vehicle that gives them a playstyle advantage that can be exploited. It's not creating some mystical balance where players learn how to fight other factions in special ways as some people think it is. If we wanted that we can have that based on what we see. If you see a VS or TR max with dual shotguns you approach the situation differently. Same exact mechanic that we get when one faction has an overpowered feature, but it can be objectively evaluated by the community and everyone is open to that playstyle.

I think that last point is good because it shows how little faction specific features add to the game and how much more it would add to give them to everyone allowing equal skillcaps in identical situations.